The Death Of Jack Harkness
by Garmonbozia
Summary: The Doctor doesn't go to wakes.  Not unless he recieves a written invitation.  In the corpse's own handwriting.   Post-WORS - - Oneshot


I don't often go to funerals. Certainly never to wakes. I'm never about for them. Anyway, they're always all sad and horrible and why would you do that to yourself? Somebody's dead, you're depressed, oh, I know, I'll go and hang around with lots of other depressed people talking loads about the person we all knew who is now dead, _that'll_ make me feel better_… _

Honestly, you humans…

But, occasionally, an opportunity comes along in one's long series of long lives that might justifiably be called 'irresistible'. I say justifiably because chocolate is irresistible and adventures and hijinks and oh, the occasional marriage and the music of The Beautiful South are all irresistible, but I can't really justify them. But a letter from a friend, in his own handwriting, which says in as many words that he will soon be dead and would be honoured if you'd turn out to mourn, _that_ is irresistible. That is not something you walk away from.

And I'm sure you're all out there looking at each other, saying, 'Surely he's not that far gone. Surely this isn't what he does for fun these days, attending the funerals of past acquaintances.' If I sound like I'm not taking this seriously, then I apologize but… well, it's difficult.

Especially when you know that the acquaintance in question lives to be a good deal older than yourself and you've already been there at the moment of his actual passing.

In addition, might I also add that Caesar's funeral was a blast. That Marc-Anthony can _talk_, I tell you… All I'm saying, I could see how funeral tourism might take off.

All of this, anyhow, neatly explains how it is that you find me stepping respectfully though the narrow door of a wooden lean-to, a barely-there building in a shanty sector of Jaipur on the far side of the twenty-sixth century. Lots of women about, though that's hardly surprising. All looking local, but, again, he never was too choosy. Can't imagine him having to fling his nets too far. One of them approaches me and I can't help but wonder, just for a moment, what sort of circumstances I might have found him in. She's short, barely five feet, and about that around the middle, hung in shawls and a heavy black dress that hangs straight off her stomach to the floor. The appearance of hovering, of silence. Grief written in every line of her withered, leathery face.

She asks if I've come to see the body. And when I tell her yes, she asks if I'm the Doctor. That's a bit more difficult. The technical, truthful answer is yes, of course I am. But I'm supposed to be lying about that at the moment. I'm supposed to be dead-and-loving-it. But she _did_ ask me straight out. And the letter that came from the purported corpse was addressed to me-as-me. So, after rather too long a pause to be comfortable, I tell her, yes. Yes, I'm the Doctor.

Haven't said that in a while. Sounds strange. Like when you pretend to be sick, and do it so well that you actually start to feel sick. Like this is the lie. I am, though. I'm still the Doctor, I think.

In a shuffle of shawls she leads up a rickety stairwell in the corner. I try not to think too hard about the physics of this place having an upper floor. I'm pretty light on my feet, I should be alright. And she must have been up and down these stairs, so I presume she knows what she's doing. There's a coffin up here, I presume. Don't like coffins very much. I was in one once, but that was alright. Don't mind an empty coffin, or a coffin with me in it, provided I'm alive. But this, here, up these stairs, in a room, on its own, this will be a coffin with somebody else's body in it.

It's okay though, because he's not really dead. No _idea_ what he's up to, but he's not really dead. So it'snot really a coffin with a body in it, so I should dry off the palms of my hands, and it's just warm in here, that's all, and I just didn't get a lot of sleep, so that's why the shaking and… this is ridiculous.

The old woman opens a door off the landing. In a dim room, curtains drawn, on a rattling, folding table, is a coffin with a body in it.

There are, and I promise you, reader, this is no exaggeration, fourteen women, aged roughly sixteen to sixty, all in the same uniform of shawl and sackcloth as my guide.

And, did I mention, a coffin with a body in it.

"Come along, ladies," my guide says. She starts at one end of the gathered gaggle of grievers and works towards the other, shepherding them towards the door. "Let's give these gents a moment."

Or, they could stay. I have no problem with them staying. They could stay here with me and the coffin with the body in it. I wouldn't be too annoyed if there were more people here than just me and him, that wouldn't bother me, really, girls, hang about, I'll tell a joke or something, it'll be brilliant, I'm really good company, but only when there's company to be good to and oh, is that the door, closing? Damn…

It's only very slowly that I get closer to the coffin and look over. Definitely him. Looking just exactly like himself. Only, you know, less alive. So much less alive that it's hard to keep reminding myself that that's not actually what's happening here.

Not to get away from the coffin, but purely from necessity, I go to the door and put my ear against it. No sound, no shuffling. They must've all gone downstairs. So I announce, plainly, to the room as much as the body in the coffin, "Alright, Jack, that's quite enough. Up you get."

No response. But then, maybe he's still waking up.

"Jack. Jack, it's me. Stop it, this isn't funny. Now you brought me here, the least you can do is get up and tell me why."

…Still nothing.

So I go back to the coffin. Slowly, _respectfully_, give one broad shoulder a poke. Can poking be respectful? It can, can't it? Well, anyway, that's why do. Expecting a warm, fleshy give. Not cold. Not that strange, canvas stiffness.

"…Jack?"

Certainly, it is disrespectful to check a corpse for vital signs. Nonetheless, that's what I do. And, strangely enough, there aren't any. No dilation of the pupils, no skin reactions, no flesh elasticity from a pinch. Oh, and the pulse and the breathing, those aren't there either. And I'm sorry, dear reader, but this just isn't possible. Jack gets all old and enormous and lives in a tank. I've seen it. I was there.

Doesn't he?

No, of course he does. I was there, and I know it to be true because of…

…Well, it certainly wasn't an assumption. I never assume anything. Except sometimes. I never assume things appertaining to the immortality of my friends, that much is certain. _Take that look off your face_, I did _not_ assume that Jack and the Face of Boe were one and the same, it's a real fact that I know to be a fact and it was _not_ an assumption.

Then I ask the sonic. And the sonic concurs with the vital signs. Says he's dead.

And, well… you don't argue with the sonic, now, do you?

It is at this point that I leave the room that has the coffin in it which has the now-very-confirmed body in it. One of the girls is already waiting in the hall to take my place. That's a human thing, isn't it, not leaving corpses alone.

Ooh, let's not use the word 'corpse'.

The big woman meets me again at the foot of the stairs.

"What happened?" I ask her.

"Sure, what would we know, mister? We're only hired." Paid mourners. Tonnes of them. Oh, the arrogant sod… And where are all the rest, I wonder, or was this a secret death, or was I meant to bring more knowledge with me today? But there's nobody here, maybe nobody anywhere, who can answer me.

The chief wailer sees that I remain relatively undisturbed, that I am fed and that a bed is prepared for after that. This doesn't happen as quickly as I'm saying it; this takes place over the course of long, consecutive hours. By the time it comes to the bed I actually do quite want it. By the time it comes to going up there, in a room directly opposite that other room, to getting away from that mass of hired howls below, I've almost forgotten the questions.

I fall into the strangest, most horrible sort of sleep there is; the kind that exhausts one further, and one will wake with a headache and a hazy, half-remembered sensation of fear that lingers after nightmares you forget. You forget them because they're all but true, and because when you wake up they're not over yet.

You wake up and he's standing next to the bed, saying, "I'm sorry. I overslept."

That's a cruel nightmare, I think, and pull the pillow tight around my head.

And it's the oddest thing, but there in what I think is my sleep, I feel a hand around my arm, shaking me. "Doctor. _Doctor_. Hey, _surprise_, huh?"

The truth, the gravity of it, starts to sink in.

"…Oh, you're kidding me." Because I don't want to know until I'm sure, I pull the cheap, rough blanket up over my head, stretch one hand out from underneath. "Hand." Jack presents, and my fingers climb up to his wrist. Oh, and there it is. The pressure of blood flow against the constriction of the circulatory system, or, in layman's terms, a pulse. As a last confirmation, I ease my head up enough to see over the edge of the blanket. Just to make sure. Eyes are unreliable. Eyes are just a final check. But corpses don't wave at you when you'd really rather they didn't.

"I know," he says, "you're going to kill me."

"No. Not my style. Do you have _any_ idea the evening I had?"

He grins. He better stop grinning. "Don't tell me I scared you?"

"You're a bloody terrible person." Only when I say that, only when I hear how it sounds, that I realize I'm still holding the blanket up under my nose, still, just a little bit, hiding. I try to sit up. He's not a ghost, after all, ghosts don't have wrists you can hold and pulses. Nothing to be afraid of, if he's not a ghost. Not that I'm scared of ghosts. I just have to sit up now. That's all. Nothing so difficult about that…

"I thought I'd be awake before you got here. What can I say, I misjudged you. Didn't think you'd come running for little old me."

"Don't _flirt_, Jack, I'm not in the mood." Grudgingly, because it is the only question there is, "How?"

Jack sits on the edge of the bed, produces a small vial from his shirt pocket. "Neat little drug. Nine kinds of illegal anywhere you care to mention, but if you go far enough forward, you can still pick it up. I thought you knew about it. Weren't you the one who gave it to Shakespeare?" For the good of the universe, I take it off him and put it away.

I lied; there's another question. "Why?" Jack sighs, a wry little laugh, and I think to myself, Here it comes. Here's the whole great web of a plan about to be unfurled to me. He manipulated me, y'know. Preyed on what a lovely person I am, what a wonderful friend, how I never abandon my people even when they're dead. He made a monkey of me and now he's about to tell me what he actually wants. He used to be a con artist. You never can forget when you're around him that he used to be a con artist.

And then he doesn't. Then he says, "I got in trouble. I need a miracle. I need to be a dead body and then I need the body to disappear."

That, apparently, is all there is to it.

"What kind of trouble?"

"Kind I could tell you about a thousand years and two thousand planets from here?"

Which, as annoyed as I might be with him, is a compelling argument delivered with strength and determination. I know the feeling, I know what he means. I get up, dress, once he's turned his back, and follow him quietly into the hall.

The hired mourners, it would seem, are in on this. Because not a one of them says a word. One of them is still sitting by the empty coffin as if she hasn't noticed Jack's got up and walked off. He stops to say goodbye to their big, auspicious leader, sitting by the iron brazier downstairs. I am waiting by the door, which is unfortunate, because right at that moment, somebody kicks it in and knocks me for six.

He's a big gent, with two even bigger gents with him. Even if Jack and I weren't expecting Trouble, and let's face it, when _aren't_ Jack and I expecting trouble, I'd say they were trouble.

I won't bore you with how it goes. It goes the usual way. They address him only as 'Harkness'. They don't say very much. Jack does, though, Jack talks a _lot_, but they don't listen to it. And it's all about to go horribly, horribly wrong, when I stand up from my corner and say, "Sorry, lads but… who are you talking to?"

A quick wink at the big old bird and she gets it. Jack would like a wink, but neither needs nor gets one. He plays along admirably, keeps up the pretence of fear, "Guys, this is a friend of mine, now you wouldn't hurt a man in front of a friend now, would you? I got nothing here to give, guys, nothing left, not a red cent, not a bean, not a thread. You know what they say, right, you can't take it with you-"

"Nah," says the first of the three. "No way I'm falling for that bull."

I'm lucky he shouts as he grabs out for Jack. Otherwise he would hear the buzz of the sonic. It's really quite clever, you know, I'm able to alter the density of Jack's upper arm so that when our barrel-chested friend tries to close his hand on it, he closes on nothing.

Not sure what this does to Jack's essential biology. Find out afterward. You'll forgive me, but I hope it hurts.

I approach the trio blocking all heat and light from the fire and rest, as far as fear will let me, a hand on the first's shoulder. With mock-sympathy, with infinite wisdom and understanding, "Were you friends of the deceased?"

By the time I get to the bit about how grief does strange things to the human mind, Jack has sloped off out the back door. It's time for them to stop glaring at me and turn back around. And see that their apparition has apparently vanished into thin air. Of course, they're not stupid. They rush out the back door after him.

Not entirely stupid. Jack has, by then, made his way round the front, to the Tardis, where he is waiting when I run past him with the key.

"…I can't feel my fingers."

"It'll be a nice rest for them, I'm sure."

"What'd you do to me?"

"Nothing you didn't deserve! Honestly, Jack, faking your own death. I've never heard of anything so childish in all my life. Hold this lever, if you're not too greatly afflicted."

He does, courteously. Most _discourteously_, he bays after me, laughing as I round the console, "Well, look who's talking!"

"That's _different_."

"Right. Of course."

"It _is_! River knows, the Ponds know-"

"But the rest of us didn't." Something different in that. Something harsh, below the words. He meant that. Nothing glib, no joke, he _meant_ it. "Took me a goddamn month to put it together. Can't say it didn't work out for me in the end, but the start of it wasn't too funny."

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"No you're not. Jesus, Doctor, what happened to you? You hate yourself so much you didn't think you'd be missed?"

In the wake of take-off, the little ear-pop moment of perfect quiet as the pressure readjusts, "I'd like to be missed."

"Yeah, well, congratulations."

He doesn't mean that part. As a matter of fact, when he says that, he looks quite hurt. I try again, one more time, for him to take or leave, "I'm sorry, Jack."

"No," he says. "You're not."


End file.
